The present invention relates to the treatment of ailments in humans and other mammals, and more particularly, to apparatus for delivering pharmaceutical compounds and genes into live cells of a patient.
It is known that DNA can be directly injected into the muscle of a mouse to cause production of the protein it encodes. This technique may allow physicians to treat human diseases with therapeutic genes. The injected genes may cause the muscle tissue to produce the desired proteins for as long as several months. Similar expression has been shown in lung, brain and skin tissues. See Genetic Technology News: Volume 10, Number 4, Apr. 1990. A shortcoming of the known injection technique is the relatively low yield of gene uptake.